In law, standing or locus standi is a condition that a party seeking a legal remedy must show they have, by demonstrating to the court, sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case. A party has standing in the following situations:
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City.
The Civil Rights Act of 1991 is a United States labor law, passed in response to United States Supreme Court decisions that limited the rights of employees who had sued their employers for discrimination. The Act represented the first effort since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to modify some of the basic procedural and substantive rights provided by federal law in employment discrimination cases. It provided the right to trial by jury on discrimination claims and introduced the possibility of emotional distress damages and limited the amount that a jury could award. It added provisions to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protections expanding the rights of women to sue and collect compensatory and punitive damages for sexual discrimination or harassment.
Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445 (1976), was a United States Supreme Court decision that determined that the U.S. Congress has the power to abrogate the Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity of the states, if this is done pursuant to its Fourteenth Amendment power to enforce upon the states the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Ballot Measure 58 was a citizen's initiative that was passed by the voters of the U.S. state of Oregon in the November 1998 General Election. The measure restored the right of adopted adults who were born in Oregon to access their original birth certificates. The measure passed with 609,268 votes in favor, 454,122 against. It was immediately challenged by several birth mothers who had put children up for adoption, which delayed instituting the measure for a year and a half.
The Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976 is a law of the United States codified in 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b). It is often referred to as "Section 1988." It allows a Federal court to award reasonable attorney's fees to a prevailing party in certain civil rights cases. The Act was designed to create an enforcement mechanism for the nation's civil rights laws without creating an enforcement bureaucracy, because the prospect of being awarded attorneys' fees is thought to incentivize attorneys to bring civil rights cases on behalf of plaintiffs.
Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517 (1994), was a United States Supreme Court case that addressed the standards governing awards of attorneys' fees in copyright cases. The Copyright Act of 1976 authorizes, but does not require, the court to award attorneys' fees to "the prevailing party" in a copyright action. In Fogerty, the Court held that such attorneys'-fees awards are discretionary, and that the same standards should be applied in the case of a prevailing plaintiff and a prevailing defendant.
Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 (1964), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court which unanimously held that Congress acted within its power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution in forbidding racial discrimination in restaurants as this was a burden to interstate commerce.
The Unruh Civil Rights Act is an expansive 1959 California law that prohibits any business in California from engaging in unlawful discrimination against all persons (consumers) within California's jurisdiction, where the unlawful discrimination is in part based on a person's sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship, primary language, or immigration status.
The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". With the stated purpose to promote art and culture, copyright law assigns a set of exclusive rights to authors: to make and sell copies of their works, to create derivative works, and to perform or display their works publicly. These exclusive rights are subject to a time limit, and generally expire 70 years after the author's death or 95 years after publication. In the United States, works published before January 1, 1927, are in the public domain.
Same-sex marriage in Colorado has been legally recognized since October 7, 2014. Colorado's state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was struck down in state district court on July 9, 2014, and by the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on July 23, 2014. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals had already made similar rulings with respect to such bans in Utah on June 25 and Oklahoma on July 18, which are binding precedents on courts in Colorado. On October 6, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the Tenth Circuit cases, and the Tenth Circuit lifted its stay. On October 7, 2014, the Colorado Supreme Court and the Tenth Circuit cleared the way for same-sex marriages to begin in Colorado.
United States v. Johnson, 390 U.S. 563 (1968), was a United States Supreme Court case.
The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) was a nonprofit organization active in the United States from 2009 through 2015. The organization was established to support the plaintiffs in Hollingsworth v. Perry, a federal lawsuit challenging California's Proposition 8 under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. AFER retained former United States Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and David Boies to lead the legal team representing the plaintiffs challenging Proposition 8.
A private attorney general is an informal term originating in common law jurisdictions for a private attorney who brings a lawsuit claiming it to be in the public interest, i.e., benefiting the general public and not just the plaintiff, on behalf of a citizen or group of citizens. The attorney may, at the equitable discretion of the court, be entitled to recover attorney's fees if they prevail. The rationale behind this principle is to provide extra incentive to private attorneys to pursue suits that may be of benefit to society at large. Private attorney general suits are commonly, though not always, brought as class actions in jurisdictions that permit the certification of class action lawsuits.
The Supreme Court of the United States handed down six per curiam opinions during its 2012 term, which began October 1, 2012 and concluded October 6, 2013.
De Leon v. Perry was a federal lawsuit challenging Texas marriage law, specifically the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and corresponding statutes. A U.S. district court ruled in favor of the plaintiff same-sex couples on February 26, 2014, granting their motion for a preliminary injunction. The state defendants filed an interlocutory appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, as the disposition on the motion was not a final ruling in the case. On April 14, 2014, the plaintiffs filed a motion for an expedited hearing, which was denied on May 21, 2014. The plaintiffs filed another motion for an expedited hearing on October 6, 2014, after the Supreme Court of the United States denied appeals in other marriage equality cases, and the motion was granted on October 7, 2014, setting a hearing for November 2014. However, on October 27, 2014, the Fifth Circuit set oral arguments for January 9, 2015.
Lloyd Maurice Bessinger Sr. was an American BBQ restaurateur and politician noted for his defense of racial segregation.
Burns v. Hickenlooper is a lawsuit filed on July 1, 2014, in federal district court in Colorado, challenging that state's denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples. The plaintiffs' complaint alleged that the defendants have violated the Fourteenth Amendment by denying plaintiffs the fundamental right of marriage. The defendants agreed with the substance of the plaintiffs' case, but asked the district court to stay implementation of any order requiring Colorado to alter enforcement of its ban pending the outcome of other litigation. After the district court declined to grant more than a one-month stay on July 23, the state's governor and attorney general appealed and won a stay from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on August 21. Following U.S. Supreme Court action in other cases, on October 8 they asked the Tenth Circuit to dismiss their appeal and lift the stay, which would effectively legalize same-sex marriage in Colorado.
In Brenner v. Scott and its companion case, Grimsley v. Scott, a U.S. district court found Florida's constitutional and statutory same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional. On August 21, 2014, the court issued a preliminary injunction that prevents that state from enforcing its bans and then stayed its injunction until stays are lifted in the three same-sex marriage cases then petitioning for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court–Bostic, Bishop, and Kitchen–and for 91 days thereafter. When the district court's preliminary injunction took effect on January 6, 2015, enforcement of Florida's bans on same-sex marriage ended.
Rolon v. Kulwitzky was an unlawful discrimination case filed by Deborah Johnson and Zandra Rolón, a lesbian couple, against a Los Angeles restaurant, Papa Choux, after they were refused seating in a semi-private booth. The lower court denied the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction in their action for unlawful discrimination, but the Court of Appeals reversed the lower court, holding that the restaurant engaged in prohibited discrimination.
